


Walking Down the Tracks

by GateBreaker



Category: Original Work
Genre: Broken marriage, Gen, How Do I Tag, Illnesses, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Infant Death, Infidelity, Loss, References to Depression, Tags Are Hard, Terminal Illnesses, This tags are just too sad, Time - Freeform, True Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-29 18:39:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18299825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GateBreaker/pseuds/GateBreaker
Summary: She was a broken clock, with broken wheels and broken points. Her insides were a faulty construction of missing pieces and recycled parts, each waiting for the final tick (her clock was ticking, faster every time).Or, a short exercise made out of pieces of different excepts.





	1. Race Against Time

**Author's Note:**

> My teachers gave us a few excerpts from books and asked us to create, for example, a climax for the first excerpt, an intro for the second, an action for the third and so on.  
> The names are from the excerpts, but I gave them the surnames (I didn't thiink much abbout them, I just gave them the first thing that came to mind).  
> English is not my first language, so I apologize for any typos or grammar errors.  
> Enjoy!

Maria lived for her husband and her children ( _lived as she breathed; mechanical in repetition, neurotic in necessity. This was the natural order of things_ ).

She lived each day like a slave to the clock ( _each tick, each tock, each flow of sand in the hourglass of time_ ).

She was a broken clock, with broken wheels and broken points. Her insides were a faulty construction of missing pieces and recycled parts, each waiting for the final _tick_ ( _her clock was ticking, faster every time_ ).

Maria lived for her husband and her children. She lived as she breathed, a slave to time ( _time was a cruel master, and a villain, and a thief; stealing everything from her. Every hour, every minute_ ), with her down on her knees ( _hoping for it to reach the end, for when her clock would make its final turn, would break the drumming in her ears and the rush of fire in her blood_ ).

She wished for time to stop ( _without time, we don’t exist_ ). To let her out of its spinning web ( _but you cannot escape time, you cannot defy it, can’t speed it up or slow it down_ ).

But everyone falls prey to the ticking of the clock ( _to the illusion of time_ ), to the deception of control ( _yet_ _you have no power_ ) and the delusion of eternity ( _it’s inevitable, the end. Everything you are, gone, in a moment, like breath on a mirror_ ).

So she coops glinting silver in her hands ( _inside_ _skin-tight fists, so it can’t find cracks between quivering fingers, so it can’t fall through the spaces in-between created by time_ ), brings it to rest upon her chest.

And wishes for the beat to stop.

 

( _but you can’t win in a race against time_ )


	2. Fading in the Dust

In the end, Rosalia Hale lost.

She lost against the world of beasts and men that sought to bring her to heel. She lost against forces that hunted and _hungered_ for her ( _blood and tears and screams and gurgles of her choking–_ ).

She lost her standing in the world of predator and prey, lost her place as a hunter, a tracker, a–( _what does it matter anyway, when they all turn to ashes all the same_ )

She lost the career she fought for ( _bleed for_ ), until she tasted metal in her mouth ( ** _iron_** , her mind supplies, _killer of stars and all that shines too **bright**_ ). Until she had skin under her nails and rage in her veins and wild howls lodged in her throat.

She lost her love ( _all **lies** ; they all leave in the end, either by hollow steps or solid graves with poison flowers following in their wake_). She lost her marriage ( _a lie too, but one she knew from the start. And isn’t that better? To know that it’s all a farce? To know not to let hope bloom and kill you when they’re gone?_ ). She lost anyone that had ever stood with her ( ** _liars_** _the lot of them; left as soon as the world turned cold. When the iron filled her bloodstream and threatened to make her core explode_ ).

She lost the child she wished had never let go ( _and that one hurt the most, that her baby never got the chance to breathe, that her baby didn’t have the will to **stay**. But was it better this way? To never know the ways the world wants you to break? To never know the ways the world will wish you to bleed? But Rosalia is selfish, and she wishes he had stayed all the same, wishes it even if he would have had to live through being prey_).

She lost the feelings that used to flow strong ( _that used to make her enemies **burn**_ ). She lost herself ( _she was drowned by the world, pulled by the current and the heavy weight of expectations_ ).

All she is and all she feels is just…

 

_Numb._

 

In the end, Rosalia Hale faded away like _dust_.


	3. From Cradle to Grave

Ludovino Hatchett and Maria Carbonelli are both very much in love. The kind of love that makes their friends jokingly make sickened faces and comment on how tooth-rottenly sweet they were. They may have been childhood sweethearts, but they were childhood _friends_ first. They have known each other since they were but mere babes being passed around in their mothers’ arms. Have known each other since their first breath. Before then too.

They have _always_ been Ludovino _and_ Maria. Maria _and_ Ludovino. Two parts of a unit. A unit of two.

When they were children – too young to know or understand the ways the world will fight to keep them apart, will snarl and howl and tear their tender skin in an effort to keep them away, to never let them become one – Maria proposed to make a pact, a pact of blood and wishes and force of will. A pact that you can never break. A pact to never be apart.

Like the movies and shows she’s seen on television, they would essentially be tied together by forces bigger than themselves. Would be one in all but physical form. And when they pressed blood stained hands against each other in promise, the world screeched and roared and _raged_ and _then–_

And then _fell apart_.

_From cradle to grave._

_Till death do them part._

But then the world showed its fangs – eyes glowing red in the dark – and slowly started to poison Maria – strong-willed Maria who could throw a punch like any of the boys and kick a ball better than Ludovino – who gradually became more recluse, less alive. More like a doll with porcelain white skin and glass-made eyes. Maria, who had fire coursing through her veins and steel in her bones, had her flame extinguished in a wisp of smoke and the metal melted from her frame.

Death had come knocking and was waiting to collect.

Ludovino refused to accept the cruelty of the Fates. To gift him with a love so all-encompassing, so true and strong, only to rip it all away from his grasping hands in a vicious show of cruelty.

And through all the anguish and torment that the news brought to their domestic bubble, they were both aware of one, solid fact.

 

_They would not survive separation._

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed, and if you found any error or misspelling or just want to drop a comment down below, it would make my day.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
